A Spell in the Country

A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody, Iain Grant
Setting: England
Published on February 23rd 2018
Pages: 446

Dee is a Good Witch but she wonders if she could be a better witch.
She wonders if there’s more to life than Disney movie marathons, eating a whole box of chocolates for dinner and brewing up potions in her bathtub. So when she’s offered a chance to go on a personal development course in the English countryside, she packs her bags, says goodbye to the Shelter for Unloved Animals charity shop and sets a course for self-improvement.

Caroline isn’t just a Good Witch, she’s a fricking awesome witch.
She likes to find the easy path through life: what her good looks can’t get for her, a few magic charms can. But she’s bored of being a waitress and needs something different in her life. So when a one night stand offers her a place on an all-expenses-paid residential course in a big old country house, she figures she’s got nothing to lose.

Jenny is a Wicked Witch. She just wishes she wasn’t.
On her fifteenth birthday, she got her first wart, her own imp and a Celine Dion CD. She still has the imp. She also has a barely controllable urge to eat human children which is socially awkward to say the least and not made any easier when a teenager on the run turns to her for help. With gangsters and bent cops on their trail, Jenny needs to find a place outside the city where they can lay low for a while.

For very different reasons, three very different witches end up on the same training course and land in a whole lot of trouble when they discover that there’s a reason why their free country break sounds too good to be true. Foul-mouthed imps, wererats, naked gardeners, tree monsters, ghosts and stampeding donkeys abound in a tale about discovering your inner witch.

This book was absolutely ridiculous and I loved it.  I actually, honestly, literally laughed out loud a few times.  From surveys where the only right answer is commenting about the survey taker’s flaming hat to absolutely perverse imps to flying landscaping equipment, it took every stereotype about witches and twisted them delightfully. 

This is a book that you don’t try to hard to make perfect sense.  It is a madcap romp and you should just go along for the ride.  There are witches of all ages and abilities.  Some use herbs.  Some use whatever is laying around.  Others have a complete set of every type of mystical craft available in occult stores. 

My only complaint is that with all the action the characterization took a back seat.  Sometimes it was hard to keep track of which witch was which.  But that is a minor quibble.  Pick this one up for a light, silly story.